The Dumbing Down of Love
by The DayDreaming
Summary: "When I…look at all of you, all of the nations…all I can see are these fake people. I can't become an empty shell like them…I want to be loved, so, so much, Ivan." America searches for the absolute truth that is love, and Russia begrudgingly complies.
1. try

**Title**: The Dumbing Down of Love

**Author**: The DayDreaming

**Rating/Warnings**: Rated T…FOR TEEN! Slight language, probably controversial issues, grade-school-esque romantic antics. One-sided US/UK, though it's really only a plot device. More-likely-than-not incorrect information. (What, the same warnings as before pffft what are you talking about?) THIS STORY IS RUSSIAXAMERICA. YOU WILL FIND NO HAPPY USUK ENDINGS HERE.

**Full Summary**: **Follow-up to "Love a Lover"** That feeling of emptiness that made him question why why why, the sensation of being alone in a crowded room, a wish that for once, there was some mutual strand of affection to be found for him and for someone else—America searches for the meaning of love, and Russia happily obliges, if only to see the one he hates the most fall into despair.

A/N: **This story is a chaptered companion piece to a one-shot, "Love a Lover." It's recommended that you either read that story first, or after this chapter. Otherwise, prepare to feel completely lost the next time I update. 'Love a Lover' can be found on my profile page. :)**

**Step 1**:_ try_

* * *

_"To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive ... and impoverished."_

-Roland Barthes

* * *

The red chrysanthemums are his favorite.

He's careful with them, nurturing, because perhaps they can understand him better than anyone else and he won't break a friendship like that. Japan had given him the seeds, which had fallen from the chrysanthemums that China had given him years upon years upon even more years before.

But even that thought makes him shudder, because he can remember, because how can he ever forget, because the meaning behind them, because the purpose of a chrysanthemum is…

Sometimes, when Kiku lies on his couch, asleep from jetlag with the game controller still clutched in his hand, Alfred can remember.

He can never erase the glint of hatred in the other's eyes as he raises his sword and pushes down down down and lets Alfred taste betrayal like the bitter tang of copper, pennies and wishing wells and tea kettles boiling over. He can't bring himself to think of how he cried and tried to pry the sword from his jacket his stomach the hardwood floor beneath while the presence of a bone-white mum plucked from America's garden sits like a silent vigil over his heart.

He likes red the best.

Red like blood and love and fire as he burns each ivory bloom into naught but ash and leaves the last for Kiku, who writhes on the floor and pleads surrender.

He likes it, and that is that.

* * *

"_Hey, Arthur?"_

"_Mm, what the hell do you want you bloody git? It's two in the fucking morning, why are you calling?"_

"_I just…I was…wondering…"_

"_Out with it, now. Now's not the time to develop an even worse speech impediment than you usually present on a daily basis."_

"_I…never mind. Good night, Arthur."_

"_Twat."_

_Alfred let the dial tone sound in his ear like a dying siren heard in the far-off distance, the cold of the kitchen seeping into his feet._

* * *

The gladiolas have already mostly subsided, but he adds the last of his late bloomers if only to not see them go to waste.

Daylilies, fiery and orange, come as an afterthought; he wonders if the other will remember giving them to him so long ago, and silently hopes not.

The rest are taken to compliment color and fill in the empty spaces. He's never been strong at arrangements, but when it's finished and wrapped, set in preservative-riddled water for the plane-ride over, America thinks it's his best work yet. And maybe it's a little brown now, but it still looks nice, and he'll like it.

He'll like it.

Right?

America pats the bouquet beside him. It's all of his hard work, tie-wrapped in colored plastic and a silk bow, the fruits of his labor that he's kept growing and alive, through illness and tears and droughts and floods and he's only ever given the damn things his best, the very best, so that must show for something.

They're his very best.

And it's enough.

* * *

"_Would you go on a date with me?"_

"_No."_

"_What? But, but you didn't even think about it-!"_

"_I can only assume you're joking, America."_

"_No! No, I'm not!"_

"_Still: no. Have you hit your head against something, you daft fool?"_

"_But, c'mon England, pleeease? One date. Just one!"_

"_You're acting more ridiculous than usual. Now, drop all this nonsense and allow me to go about my day."_

"_Arthuuuur—"_

"_No, America. What are you trying to pull? Some harebrained scheme, I'm sure. Well, you won't catch me falling for it."_

"_Please, England. I'm not kidding. Just…please go on a date with me?"_

"…_.Why I allow him to do this to me, I'll never know-Fine. When and where?"_

"_Ah, um…h-how about the next conference?"_

"_The one at my house?"_

"_Yeah!"_

"_Right, then. So…I suppose you'd want to go on our scheduled off-day, between days Two and Three?"_

"_Yeah, that'd be great! How does around lunch sound to you?"_

"_Fine, I suppose. You're paying, of course."_

"_Whaaaat? Whatever happened to being a gentleman? Besides, I thought we'd go Dutch on this one."_

"_Anyone can be considered a gentleman when they're standing next to you. If you're trying to be romantic, I must commend you on your fantastic failure."_

"_Hey, I'm perfectly romantic, you're just—"_

"_Enough. I'm not paying, that's final. If you're worried about the bill, go borrow from China and don't eat like such a godforsaken pig."_

"…_.Whatever."_

"_Oooh, such wit."_

"…"

"…_Fine. Call later and we'll work out the details. Understood?"_

"_Yeah, sure."_

_America couldn't abate the pounding in his chest, the beating of his heart. After all, isn't this he wanted?_

* * *

It's cold today.

America wraps his arms tighter around himself and eyes Russia's retreating back. Wishing that he'd had the forethought of bringing a coat, or a thicker jacket, gloves, a scarf. It is so, so cold, and as he sits by himself, the metal of his watch burning into his skin like a frozen brand, he wishes that he would come along, and maybe offer a hat, or the warmth of an arm.

He must be busy. Must have forgotten to call.

Russia must be lying.

He stares into the face of his watch, reflection faint in the domed glass. Had he remembered to set it to England's time? Maybe he hadn't. That's why he's not here; America's just early. But, it's been hours.

He'll show up soon, though; any minute now, even.

Another minute ticks by, second hand twitching in beat with the tapping of pedestrian footsteps, and he wishes for just one single pair to come up and sit with him, to make him not feel so alone within a crowd of apathetic people.

It is so, _so_ cold.

* * *

"_Don't forget, okay?"_

"_Yes, yes. I've gotten it quite enough, thank you. I'm not going to forget it, since you keep bloody bringing it up at every waking hour of the day."_

"_I'll remind you tomorrow, too. Just in case! I'll have the hotel call you!"_

"_Fucking—Yes, I understand. I'm not you, you know."_

"_Okay!"_

"_Yes."_

"_So, yeah. Totally call you."_

"_So you've said."_

"_Yeah."_

"…_I'm going to hang up now."_

"_O-okay! Bye, Arthur!"_

"_Goodbye, America."_

_America closed his cellphone and smiled._

* * *

America doesn't wait for the answering machine's message to play, instead quickly canceling the line and redialing, listening as the tone carries on.

Six missed calls. Two voice messages. Four texts.

The tone hitches, then smoothly slides into the faintly electronic voice of the answering machine as it rattles off his options. Cancel and try again.

Seven missed calls. Two voice messages. Four texts.

Going going gone.

Eight missed calls. Two voice messages. Four texts.

And so he tries again. At the last moment, the tone is interrupted by a pause before a low, husky voice assaults his ear, heavily accented, cloying like a breath of hot air against skin.

"_Bonsoir, how may I help you this fine evening?"_

He hears giggling in the background, pitchy and familiar. He says nothing.

"_Come now, don't be shy. You have been busy trying to call, speak up."_

The voice from earlier slurs out _a 'Fraaaanschiiiish, get the fucksh over here, you—ahm, you worthlesh piece of—oooh, right there right there—'_. A breathy laugh falls into the phone and curls into Alfred's ear, worming its way down to his stomach and settling like a great, sleeping beast.

"_Whoever you are, you'll have to excuse us. L'Angleterre is, ah, preoccupied at the moment, as am I. Au revoir!"_

The disconnection tone sounds in his ear, wailing in a fury, only to quickly burn out as the iPhone returns to the main call screen.

He tries again and goes directly to voicemail.

Nine missed calls. Three voice messages. Four texts. One call received.

_

* * *

He held the stem tightly in his hand, dirtied fingers sliding evenly over coiled green, steadying for the quick, decisive cut. _

_All around him the decayed crops of summer sat idly by, wilted husks across the ground like slain soldiers and tattered pages of fairytales. The porch light splayed over his back, a quiet beacon in the night as he clipped each of his chosen gifts carefully. He had to leave in a couple hours, but he wanted the cuts to be as fresh as possible, the flowers to last just a little bit longer._

_The best. Only the best for England. He'd like them. He had to like them._

_He tried so hard, after all. And even if England still screamed and shouted at him, belittled him and threw his feelings aside like an old newspaper, yellowed and torn, he would see just how hard he tried._

_He would._

_The scissors slipped, cutting into his index cleanly and without remorse. It didn't hurt if he didn't look at it. That's how it always was, right? If you can't see it, you can't feel it. He wondered if that's how his government worked, but let the thought pass him by to place the white blooms of anemones in his basket._

* * *

It's beginning to rain.

He stares at the screen of his dead iPhone, batteries already depleted.

He turns to his watch, lines of moisture warping the face and magnifying the roman numeral III. It's dark out, making it difficult to locate the tiny arms jittering away inside.

It rains a little bit harder. How typical for bad weather on a date with England. He should have known. The damp gets into his hair, crawls down his scalp to slip past the neckline of his hoodie.

_

* * *

He stared at the ceiling, counting to ten in his head, one two three foursixeighteleventen, easing into getting on his feet and dragging himself to the kitchen._

_He realized for the millionth time how big his house was._

_Reaching the kitchen counter, America blindly grabbed for the phone. He fumbled the numbers, thumb sliding smoothly over the rubber buttons before pressing in with decisive clicks._

_He held his breath, unable to remember how many hours ahead or behind he was from England, but ceased the thought as the line picked up on the other end, yes yes yes—_

"_Hey, Arthur?"_

"_Mm, what the hell do you want you bloody git?"_

_He wondered for the millionth time just why he felt so alone._

* * *

The red chrysanthemums are his favorite.

Even if the irregular incurves take a little more effort than some, he's happy to put in the effort, to water them and feed them, shade when the sun is too hot or shield when there's too much rain; talk to them and tell them his hopes and dreams, because maybe, just maybe they'll bear dreams and aspirations of their own in the tiny bubbles of existence they reside within, that he shares with them.

He picks a delicate red petal, tugging firmly so that it separates cleanly from the base. It's soft, and despite his gentleness, rumpled and torn. It covers the scab over his index finger, looking a little bit like blood.

"Loves me," he mumbles, lets the petal go, fluttering into the fountain, a cardinal's feather.

He put in three red blooms. Now there's only one left, in his hand.

Let go, rinse and repeat, the daily school-yard games he never got to play with the other children; those humans came and went so quickly, child to adult in the blink of an eye and he knows he dealt with loneliness back then, but he can't remember _how_.

"Loves me not."

He can't quite imagine who he's thinking of.

"Loves me."

He wonders if it's England, and suppresses a laugh. 'Lie back and think of England.' He can't, "Loves me not."

The fountain is swimming with petals, disturbed by the pitter-patter of rain on water. The color bleeds into night, and he can't help but miss the stars.

The sky is a black hole over London.

"Loves me."

He misses being able to see the stars. He wants to go back to the days where stars were just a fleeting thought in the world, nameless upon his child-like breath as he slept in untamed forests and fields and drank the water of gods without knowing the consequences.

He thinks of Ivan (not Russia _notRussia_, because Russia is mean and hateful and yearns for him to die, he can tell from that look in his eye and sometimes America wishes he could do as Russia wants and just disappear among the stars), and wonders if what he says about Alfred being unlovable is true.

There is one petal left on the battered, browning stem, bright red in the dim of the distant streetlight and pouring rain. Where is he now? He counts backwards, comes up with an answer.

He throws the stem into the fountain to rot with all the rest.

Maybe he shouldn't be trying. Maybe…Maybe he's meant to be this way.

He looks to his watch and sees that the hands have stopped moving, eternal ticking gone silent.

Everything feels so cold. Even his heart has stopped ticking, winding down, timing out dead battery better luck next time. Nothing lasts forever, not even the petals on a red chrysanthemum.

He folds himself up onto the lip of the fountain and hugs his knees to his chest and wishes his mouth didn't taste of copper, like pennies and wishing wells and tea kettles boiling over.

Like blood and love and fire as his eyes burn with the weight of the starless universe over London on his back.

**

* * *

**

**Some notes:**

-The first section is of course referring to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagisaki.

-Chrysanthemums: truly beautiful flowers. Originated in China, then were introduced to Japan sometime around the 8th century. Later came to Europe sometime around the 17th century, and then made its way to the Americas. Technically, Europe introduced the chrysanthemum to America, but for the story's sake, I'm saying Japan, because how awe-worthy is it when you think of being given a chrysanthemum flower that is the resultant of hundreds of years of other chrysanthemum flowers that were originally given to you by China?

-White chrysanthemums: In many Asian countries, white chrysanthemums symbolize lamentation and grief, and are generally used at funerals. Some European countries designate them to mean death. In even more countries, it represents honesty. So, take that scene as you will. There's kinda sorta a lot of meaning packed into those two little paragraphs, but I trust you guys to be able to sort through your feelings. ;)

-Red chrysanthemums: Generally mean 'love' or 'I love you.' (awwwww)

-Gladiolas and daylilies: Gladiolas used to be an important medicinal plant in England. Daylilies were brought over to the Americas during the 1700s, around the time of colonization. I tried to imply that England gave America these flowers, m'kay? ;)

-Going Dutch: A (somewhat offensive) term meaning split the bill equally, or everyone pays for themselves, instead of the more traditional inviter pays for the invitees. It has a funny history and implication in the rest of the world, if you wanna look it up. ;)

* * *

I…I'm gonna go shoot myself in the foot now kthxbye.

I promised myself I wouldn't write this story until I got some of my others over at ffnet finished up. D: But, I got struck with inspiration for the beginning of it, so here it is now, incredibly stupid and awful and ugly. Fuck.

I really don't like this, but I can't make myself stop; it's like some sort of fungus it's eating me aliiiive. Anyways, this basically parallels Love a Lover, though is much more condensed and cuts off before Russia makes his second appearance. I didn't think you guys needed a repeat of that, so just decided to give you a look into America's thoughts at the time, since Russia's limited point of view is ridiculously biased and detailed and yet still incredibly oblivious. :|

Chapters will be erratic, with varying lengths depending on content and inspiration at the time, but you can generally count that they'll be around this length. Maybe. …Hopefully. …Don't count on it.

I really hope this doesn't disappoint those of you who wanted a sequel to Love a Lover. I honestly can't figure out why you guys liked it, but hopefully you'll be okay with this, too?

_*******I have a LiveJournal account under the username Eram_Quod_Es, where I will be posting chapters for this story first, and then transferring them over onto my ffnet account a couple days later. Wanna see updates sooner? Go over to my lj. :)_


	2. pick yourself up

**Title**: The Dumbing Down of Love

**Author**: The DayDreaming

**Rating/Warnings**: Rated T…FOR TEEN! Slight language, probably controversial issues, grade-school-esque romantic antics. One-sided US/UK, though it's really only a plot device. More-likely-than-not incorrect information. (What, the same warnings as before pffft what are you talking about?) THIS STORY IS RUSSIAXAMERICA. YOU WILL FIND NO HAPPY USUK ENDINGS HERE.

**Full Summary**: **Follow-up to "Love a Lover"** That feeling of emptiness that made him question why why why, the sensation of being alone in a crowded room, a wish that for once, there was some mutual strand of affection to be found for him and for someone else—America searches for the meaning of love, and Russia happily obliges, if only to see the one he hates the most fall into despair.

A/N: This story is a chaptered companion piece to a one-shot, "Love a Lover." It's recommended that you read that story first. Otherwise, prepare to feel completely lost. 'Love a Lover' can be found on my profile page. :)

**It was brought to my attention by a very kind reviewer that I might have mixed up my files when uploading the first chapter. Now, I swore I checked and the file was correct when I first uploaded it, but when I checked after being informed, it was in fact the file for Love a Lover that was displaying. It's been changed now, so for anyone that read the last chapter, please check back and see if it's different now. If it is, please read that one first!  
**

**STEP 2**: _pick yourself up_

_

* * *

_

_"In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while."_

-Henry David Thoreau

**

* * *

00**

**00**

**00**

Russia doesn't really think about it, about how wasteful it is or how beautiful they are, touched and gold-spun by America's hands, America's soil.

As soon as America leaves through the spinning hotel doors, he drops the blooms, _seveneightnine _sunflowers, into the gutter.

**00**

**00**

**00**

_He remembered a time when England used to send him letters. They would take months and months to come, and by then the words they held had become nothing but fallacies and empty lines, black ants skittering across parchment._

_But he read them. Each and every one._

_The sentences, so carefully penned, in smooth curlicues and sweeping curves. They were like flowers, blooming on his page into a garden of black and brown; they breathed life, made him smile because it was so, __**so**__ beautiful. England was ever the writer, composing stories with language more vivid and bold than he could pronounce in the bland articulateness of his speech._

_He tucked each letter safely into a box, and every time it stormed and his heart thudded in his chest, _beat_beat__**beat **__with terror and elation, he would slip out the dusty, collected pages and read. Immerse himself in the words of his other, his life, the man that promised to be there for him but remained half-way across the world anyways._

_With every word, he felt like a part himself was taken away, to a place neither here nor there, but somewhere he hoped England could feel him._

**00**

**00**

**00**

America's hotel room is cold when he comes back. The sheets on the bed are made, the clothes he had flung around earlier folded neatly into his luggage, complimentary mints placed on his pillow.

He breathes in and it feels sterile, none of the dust and atmosphere of home. It is an empty, used shell. He thinks that if he steps through the threshold, battles each heavy footfall to bed, he might be able to look back and see the trail left behind in his wake, the tarnish of another body across the frosted plane of carpet.

But, he doesn't want to. It feels so cold, so cold; he thinks he can maybe see his breath coming out in smeary white paths, dissipating in the still silence. If he goes in, if he stays, will he freeze? It's so dark with just the single, cold halogen glow of the lamp between two empty beds. He's sure the covers will stiffen after he's settled, melding into one and enfolding him, pocketing him like a dollar, a button, and he won't be able to _move_, won't _breathe_, and-.

Would anyone miss him?

Would they pry the sheets apart and find him, huddled and solid, try to shake him awake—he'd be on one side of the bed, space enough for another, so if maybe they missed him enough, _loved_ (haha what is love) him enough, they could both settle down and _just_—be.

No one has ever wanted to just—be with him. Not even England.

**00**

**00**

**00**

_He learned them by heart, eventually._

_He stopped taking out the letters, and he began to write. _

_But it wasn't the same. _

_So he sat back, and he thought of what he was missing. Obviously, England. He couldn't be England. Never could be, because Arthur had told him so. _

_**When I get big and strong, I'll be just like you, right?**_

_**Of course not, silly child. You will never be as big as me, but that's alright. I like you just the way you are. You'll always be mine, this way.**_

_He knew the letters by heart, so he wrote them. His were messy, blotted ink on browned canvas, the best he could afford in a place without the finer things. _

_But, he got better, over time. _

_Words once messy began to fall with ease. He tried, again and again, to let his script flow and bloom, flowers of spring and fields of summer. He wrote himself a garden of England's words, curlicues and sweeping curves, and it felt good, so good, to be that much closer to England, because he couldn't be God, but he would try._

_He burned each forgery, of course; let their edges curl inwards as they writhed in the flames of his fireplace. _

_Because, in the end, he only ever needed the original._

**00**

**00**

**00**

The meeting is quiet. Russia looks to the seat across from him and a couple chairs up. It is easy to disguise the stare, easy to pretend that he's merely sweeping his eyes over the space as he gazes on at the current speaker.

America isn't here.

It leaves a seed of discontent in his stomach. How dare he? _How dare he. _Russia feels as though he's missing out on a particularly good spectacle, a show he's been waiting for since late last night, that he deserves. He should be here. He needs to be here. Even if he's terrible and stupid and annoying, America's presence is necessary to corral the chaos which comes with each meeting, though he's often the spark to fuse that sets each organized assembly ablaze. He has power, and a voice, and even if they all ignore the words, the tone is what catches those silly, small-minded Nations off-guard.

America is dangerous. How odd that they seem to forget that, most of the time.

Comfort comes in the form of an irritated England, set at the head of the table and subtly kneading his temple. He puts on a good show, though the dark bags under his eyes and the barely hidden bruise on his neck are easily noticed by Russia; it makes him smile. The man has a hangover, and France a black eye. The stubble on France's chin is especially grown, gone un-groomed in the wake of a late morning and no time to spare.

England doesn't notice that he's wearing France's tie from yesterday.

He lets his eyes rove back to the empty chair. The only empty chair. He knows that England is looking there too, and smiles wider. He wonders if the other remembers, knows, cares.

And hopes he does.

Because America isn't here, and that is a chaos in and of itself.

**00**

**00**

**00**

_He didn't really notice until one of the colonies' representatives pointed it out; he wrote just like England._

_Matthew pointed it out next. He took the paper from his hands and held it close to his face, squinting before his eyes popped open in surprise._

_**You used to be horrible at writing, but this is pretty good. Has England been teaching you?**_

_Matthew smiled wistfully at the page._

_**I wish he'd pay attention to me. But I guess he couldn't stand your sloppy cursive, eh Alfred?**_

_He took the paper and tore it in half. Mood soured, he stole into his room and let his brother knock on the door and plead for him to come out._

_Of course he wouldn't understand. Of course he would assume. Because no matter how big Alfred got, Arthur would always be bigger._

_And maybe a tiny part of him believed Matthew couldn't help but hate him. They shared a border of disdain, after all, and Mattie was always better at letting him know without actually telling him._

**00**

**00**

**00**

America aches. His head, his chest, his heart. Skin and muscle and bone. Each joint and knuckle swollen, mind caught in cottony fog.

He's cold cold cold, never been warm or felt the heat of the sun in his life, and the knowledge leaves a burning in the cavern of his lungs. He can't get enough air. It catches in his trachea, sticks to the inside of his mouth, on his teeth, but it won't go down and he's left in a coma-state, or maybe this is cryogenics in its basic form.

He's too tired to move, though he wouldn't want to; the ache sits in his stomach, heavy and hard; if he moves, he's afraid he'll tip over and all of himself, whatever little is left in this goddamn world and hasn't been taken by another, will spill onto the floor. He burrows further into his nest and tries to dream.

He can't tell whether he's awake or not; it seems as though his eyes are always half-open, staring at the same patch of carpet where his phone sits, just out of reach, fallen from his pants pocket as he kicked the wet clothing off of himself. It doesn't matter; the batteries are dead, and his charger is all the way across the room.

He grasps the thick duvet closer to himself, closes his eyes. It doesn't make much of a difference in the dim twilight he's made for himself, huddled in the two-foot space between the hotel beds, one of the long comforters stretched across the gap to create a fort. Just like he and Mattie used to make, before the other learned what envy was, and that Alfred didn't share well.

He wishes Tony were here, though his small friend would loath London. He'd make him soup, and hold his head, and if America asked for it, tell a story about his home world that would sooth the nation into dreams filled with stars.

**00**

**00**

**00**

_He felt him before he could really think about who it was; the familiar footfalls and breaths. He ignored it though, pulled tighter on his knees. _

_He would be rock and stone, a boulder in the rain; he wouldn't shift, wouldn't move, because England wasn't here, and he promised, __**promised**__—_

_He had always promised a lot of things. Gifts. To see his fae friends. To help him harvest his fields, just once. To teach him to dance. To stay with him._

_Just once._

_**Just once.**_

_His letters were his proof, his seal. Each sentence a story, woven to please. Only to have the story shift and change in the next letter, come one year late. I apologize, he wrote._

_I apologize._

_Forgive me._

_I'm terribly sorry._

_America looked up, Russia and his violet, __**violet**__ eyes filling his vision, framed by a pink umbrella._

_He could never be stone. All he could be was the bitter, cold wind that beat at mountains but could not make them move._

**00**

**00**

**00**

He doesn't wake for a long while. Or at least it feels as such. His lids are gummy, pasting together; he almost falls back to sleep, but more pressing needs urge him up and to his knees, crawling out of his small haven into the sterile air of the hotel.

He feels numb and boneless, without the strength to lift himself to his feet. He settles for pulling along the carpet in short bursts, resting and letting his mind spin off into oblivion and dark spots on the horizon of his vision, before snapping back to consciousness and trying again.

He makes it to the small stall of his bathroom eventually; lifts the lid of the commode and vomits, the heavy weight in his stomach disappearing into numb blankness and roiling acid.

He sobs because it hurts, it's always hurt, and he can't remember a time without aching or the burn of hot bile against a cold, frozen throat.

He slumps to the floor and twitches at the thought of the vile things that crawl around on the tile, before stilling and allowing the blank of his mind to pull him away. Time passes immeasurably before he gains awareness again, wiping at the crust around his mouth and crawling from the stall, back to the nest, the pit.

He wants to hide from the world and all the cold, creeping creatures that pull themselves along the carpet with him.

**00**

**00**

**00**

_He began to write his own garden, eventually. _

_England had stopped sending him letters. America didn't; kept telling him of the season's harvest, the owls living in the tree in his yard, the daylilies growing like weeds on the side of the road._

_He wrote and wrote, but there never came a reply._

_So, he stopped sending them._

_But, he kept trying._

_He wrote letters to no one, to an anonymous addressee. Talked about the warmth of summer and the apples in his orchard, the den of rabbits stealing from his vegetable patch, the shooting stars he'd seen at night, sitting by himself at the top of the highest hill he could find._

_He tucked each letter away in a box, right next to England's. And sometimes, when it stormed outside and his heart thudded in his chest, _beat_beat__**beat **__with terror and elation, he would slip out the letters addressed to no one and read of better days and hopes and dreams._

_He could be just as good as England. England, after all, wasn't a god. Sometimes it was possible to think, in the silence of his empty house, against the scritch of his quill, that England didn't exist at all, a man that promised to be there for him but remained half-way across the world anyways._

**00**

**00**

**00**

The meeting adjourns.

The Nations stand, chatter, leave.

America's chair remains empty. The assembly has run two hours over schedule. Plenty of time to come and join.

Is he really that upset over England?

Russia observes as England walks over to America's chair and kicks it.

After all, it is a terrible slight to the Nation holding the meeting if one doesn't show up.

Russia merely smiles.

**00**

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**00**

America barely remembers crawling to his phone and then to his luggage, digging out the charger and stabbing it into the wall before he slumps over and uses his duffel bag as a pillow.

He wakes to see the green battery on the screen, blinks in confusion, and wonders where Tony is.

He thinks to call out for him, but his mouth tastes vile and old, and instead he takes in a shuddering breath that doesn't quite catch in his throat. Then he smells the sickness from earlier, permeating the room and sticking to his skin, and remembers.

He takes the phone in his shivering hands (it's so cold so cold _so cold_) and flicks the screen to his main page, sees the time and date.

Day three of the world meeting has come and gone. In London, it is 7:23. England will be wondering where he is. He should call. Or England will call him, to yell at him. Or send someone to his room.

He can't quite bring himself to care.

If no one's come by now, then they're not too terribly torn up about it.

As America taps along the screen of the iPhone, accessing his plane tickets and altering his date of departure from London, he remembers when Matthew used to come and take care of him.

Though the other would constantly snipe at him for being messy, or throwing up on the floor, he would always stay for a couple days to help nurse him back to health. Eventually though, a couple weeks after his latest recession, Matthew stopped caring, too.

He went home and left Tony to pick up America and drag him to bed. And he didn't mind. Because he knew there really were no strings left between them to attach themselves to each other.

He wasn't sad. Just empty.

And so, _so_ cold.

**00**

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**00**

_One day, he decided to write his own story._

_He was so tired of being like England, of wanting to be beside England. England wouldn't come, and that was that._

_The stories in his letters became old and worn, smooth stones in America's vocabulary that clinked together in an age-old rhyme._

_They always came with the predictable ending, never changing, never altering._

_So, he wrote, and upon his page, each word bloomed, smooth curlicues and sweeping curves, token flowers to fill a garden of his own mind. They breathed life, like blue sky and freedom, and from within he felt power; at each written word, he stamped out his iron will and impressed it upon the brown canvas world._

_He wrote and he grew and he cultivated; drew the plot along and ended each twist in the story with a period._

_He dreamed of a nameless person, sending letters addressed to no one._

**00**

**00**

**00**

America's flight leaves in six hours.

He gathers his things, leaves the fort in place. It is slow, each movement feeling like eternity.

But, eventually, he comes to stand under the familiar awning, waiting for his cab. It isn't raining, but the dark of night leaves a sour taste in his mouth. He aches in the cold, wishes he hadn't left his old flight jacket at home.

The cab pulls up, and the doorman comes over to help him with his baggage, knocking his toiletry bag off his suitcase as the man lifts it into the trunk. Unsteady on his feet, America bends to pick it up, sopping wet from the gutter.

_Seveneightnine_ sunflowers, waterlogged and bedraggled in the gloam.

He pulls himself up, hands the bag to the embarrassed attendant.

"It's okay," he mutters to the man and smiles, tipping him and sliding roughly into the cab.

He feels sick again; too much exertion. His mind fills with cotton and heaviness makes itself known in his gut.

He asks the driver to turn up the heat; he's freezing.

Frozen to the core, like he's never felt warmth or the heat of the sun.

Sunflowers.

He can't get the taste of copper out of his mouth, like pennies and wishing wells and tea kettles boiling over.

There are no stars. He rests his head against the sticky cab door and squints his bleary, reddened eyes, morphing streetlights and windows into blurs; counts them and forms constellations, looks for the North Star.

Because he needs something.

Anything, to guide him.

**00**

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**00**

_The revolution was to come, inevitably._

_He hadn't finished his story. The prose sprawled on and on, but he found his words becoming clipped._

_The world was on fire, there was no time to waste on imaginary worlds. He put the pages away; locked them in a box, next to his unsent letters._

_He took England's letters, pulled each out slowly, one by one. Read them, ink scrawling across the expanse of parchment, black ants. He mouthed each word, each tale, each apology._

_He walked to the harbor, carried the letters, sealed in their envelopes, close to his heart._

_He read the letters, over and over again, each and every one. But it wasn't the same._

_So, he sat back and thought about what he was missing._

_But, no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't find his answer. The world turned, the oceans moved, the sun shone, just as they always had. Something had come and gone, and had been as such for a while, so long that he couldn't remember when or what it was._

_Something he knew for sure, though. He was tired of waiting for England._

_And so, he took each letter, kept so precariously close to his heart, and let them fall into the unforgiving sea. And with each, he dreamed a new chapter for his story, a plea to the world._

I'm terribly sorry.

I apologize.

Forgive me.

_But, he guessed England never did._

**00**

**00**

**00**

Russia trails behind the other Nations, a loose smattering heading back to the hotel to refresh themselves.

He wonders if it will rain again; if it does, he doesn't have his umbrella to protect him this time.

Some of the Nations stop ahead of him and point to the front of the hotel. Russia almost bumps into them, but sidesteps at the last second, releasing an ominous chuckle that makes them scatter.

He looks to see what had caught their attention, only to catch America sliding into a cab.

He wants to tug America out and demand to know where he thinks he's going. Wants to shake him and ask why he didn't come to the meeting and confront England. Wants to keep him from driving away and—

And what?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, as England would say. Russia smiles and moves to enter the warmth of the hotel, out of the biting cold.

**00**

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**00**

_He guessed Russia never did, either._

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* * *

Um….go go Godzilla? I dunno. ;-;

This story is honestly supposed to be filled with funny and crack and rainbow-vomit. Instead, it is sort of a bummer. I am sorry. I once had a sense of humor. Then, I died. GO GO GODZILLA!

So, this chapter is dedicated to, uh, developing a bit more character and establishing the sort of mindset we find one of our main characters in. We already know about Russia through Love a Lover, now we get to see the kind of crazy fiddlestick America is, sort of like the prize in a bag of Crackerjacks. (ahaha sorry it's five thirty in the morning and I haven't slept at aaaaaall).

AND PLEASE TELL ME YOU GUYS EXPECTED AMERICA TO GET SICK AFTER SITTING FOR WHO KNOWS HOW LONG OUT IN THE COLD, AND PROBABLY SUSTAINING HYPOTHERMIA AND PNEUMONIA. It's not like I said anything specifically ('cuz I was too lazy to look up what pneumonia entailed), but seriously. I'm too mean to let the chance of America being all squishy-vomitty pass me by.

This update brought to you by, YouTube! And a lovely little RussiaxAmerica video set to Sia's Breathe Me.

Can you guys tell that by about half way through I lost all sense of literary consistency and just started flinging random crap about? You too? Good. I am exhausted, therefore this is the kind of stuff you get. Nyeh.


	3. coalesce your broken heart

**Title**: The Dumbing Down of Love

**Author**: The DayDreaming

**Rating/Warnings**: Rated T…FOR TEEN! Slight language, probably controversial issues, grade-school-esque romantic antics. One-sided US/UK, though it's really only a plot device. More-likely-than-not incorrect information.

**Summary**: Follow-up to "Love a Lover" That feeling of emptiness that made him question why why why, the sensation of being alone in a crowded room, a wish that for once, there was some mutual strand of affection to be found for him and for someone else—America searches for the meaning of love, and Russia happily obliges, if only to see the one he hates the most fall into despair.

**A/N: This story is a chaptered companion piece to a one-shot, "Love a Lover."** It's recommended that you read that story first. Otherwise, prepare to feel completely lost.

**PLEASE, GUYS. I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M USING CAPSLOCK FOR THIS. READ 'LOVE A LOVER' WHICH CAN BE EASILY FOUND IN MY PROFILE, BEFORE READING THIS STORY. ALSO, EARLY READERS THAT FAVORITED THIS STORY ON CHAPTER 1, PLEASE GO BACK AND READ CHAPTER 1 AGAIN! I UPLOADED THE INCORRECT FILE, AND THEREFORE YOU'VE MISSED ABOUT ONE THIRD OF THE STORY SO FAR. THANK YOU. TRUST ME, THINGS WILL BECOME A LOT CLEARER, IF YOU GUYS DIDN'T SKIP OVER MY NOTES.**

**0-0-0**

**STEP 3**: _coalesce your broken heart_

* * *

_If I venture to displace ... the microscopical speck of dust... on the point of my finger,... I have done a deed which shakes the Moon in her path, which causes the Sun to be no longer the Sun, and which alters forever the destiny of multitudinous myriads of stars._

-Edgar Allen Poe

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* * *

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Sometimes, Alfred wishes he could just jump out of an eighteenth-story window; to see the world from the eyes of a shooting star.

**00**

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It's what he feels like most, nowadays.

**00**

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A brief flash in the night, shocking and beautiful.

Once he's past the atmosphere though, it's all one long fall that ends with a bang.

**00**

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And he…

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Well, most things break when they hit the ground. Right?

**00**

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Can't stop gravity without a parachute.

**00**

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The sun is shining today; it burns into the front of his closed lids and makes the darkness red. He could move, but he doesn't; it's distressing and giving him a headache, or maybe it's worsening a headache he's already had, but there's no will to resist. The sun is heat and it is hot and warm and it still feels like summer here, even if it's late September.

If it could stay this way, blue skies and burning sun and cumulus clouds that bring promises of rains not bitten in the frost of isolated islands, he thinks he might…

His head bangs against the glass of the car window, and the embassy worker specifically chosen as his driver looks over worriedly.

It doesn't hurt; he keeps his eyes closed. Everything comes as a numb afterthought to him in this season of wheezing air and flaccid fingers wound into pretend handholds.

He wants to be held. He alone can't do it; it's too hard to love himself.

He thinks about asking the embassy worker to pull over, or maybe he could lean himself against the woman's shoulder. She wouldn't mind; she's used to him, to Alfred and America. He thinks she may be able to tell the difference between he and him.

She gives America paperwork and a Big Mac, and Alfred a blanket and ice cream. And if a human can understand that, he can't help but think that others can, too.

**00**

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_He could remember a time when no one knew his name. He was young then, though if he wants to think about it, he's still young. Two hundred and thirty five years as an official nation, more in his transient colonial phase, and more beyond that._

_That was a time he could not clearly define; he left it as vague as possible, when anyone bothered to ask. _

'_**Beyond that.'**_

_Timeless._

_He didn't know how old he was, only that people started counting in what he could only assume were the 'late' 1500s. Perhaps earlier, perhaps not. He wasn't like the others, who knew where they began and where they ended. They began with their mothers and fathers, and added centuries and years and days and seconds from there._

_But, he was content in his secret age. All those days spent in absolute freedom, traversing the fields that were undeniably his; all those memories of chasing fireflies and sleeping within wolves' dens and sucking from the teats of those animals willing to give themselves to a hungry child in return for the lands' blessing; all those secret, hidden memories that no one knew except for him him him._

_Once upon a time, he bowed to no man, and to no other nation. He was wind and water and grass over his terrain, breathed lightning and desert sand. He was special._

_There were those like him, South and North, but he wanted nothing to do with them. Borders undefined, his land could be their's, and their's his, and it wouldn't matter because they were vast and the world kind and unforgiving all at once._

_Empty and filled, he lived a life that came with no regrets._

_There was but the sun and moon and no voice with which to ask his questions that spanned universes, that could merely be answered in smiles._

**00**

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**00**

He must have known the woman for at least thirty years now; he must have, at one point, asked her name. He can never seem to recall it, though, so he lets the thought slide away from him and tries to remember to catch a glimpse of her name tag the next time she wears it.

She walks him to the door, smiles and stretches the wrinkles around her lips, deepening the furrows over her brow. She's old, he thinks. He remembers her as a pretty woman in her thirties. But, age doesn't matter, not to him; he knows her as beautiful, and it's enough that she still blushes and fixes the ring on her finger, though he recalls that she's widowed.

He wants to ask her how it happened, how it was she fell in love and wore the shackles of the deceased; that was ardor and devotion, wasn't it?

No Nation wore a wedding band.

"You'll be okay?" she asks for the third time.

America nods, too tired and numb to smile. Silly human. Silly, caring human. So sweet; so, so sweet.

She wavers on the doorstep, looks at the bags under his eyes and the halting heaves of his chest. He must appear as though he's dying, but she knows better than to think as such. Without much thought she lunges at him, envelopes his torso; she holds on and doesn't let go. America stills, breath flown away to leave a tight, airless void that pulses, almost _almost_ like a heart; the wind rattles in his chest and sun beats across his eyes and catches the fine strands in the woman's grey hair.

She smells like lavender and dust, and he can't help but smile and wrap himself around her, breathe her in. There is warmth, and the swollen numbness in his chest shudders before collapsing. He lets something raw fall from his throat, not quite a sob or moan; it sounds a little like laughter, or a death rattle.

Anything he can get. He'll take anything he can get, because there certainly isn't anyone waiting for him at the end of the long, lightless tunnel.

**00**

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'America isn't here again.'

Russia scribbles the line on his notes, examines the Cyrillic letters, then blots it out and turns the dark smear into the thick stem of a sunflower, crawling up the spiral notebook's margin.

His chair sits, empty. No one dares to take it; not with the way England is allowing his heated gaze to fall over the seat. How childish and moronic, he thinks, though he doesn't know to whom he's referring.

He catches sight of a familiar blond and almost chuckles darkly at his late arrival and the fact that he's sitting in the wrong chair, before he realizes that the violet gaze plastered to the tabletop isn't what he's looking for.

Russia presses the tip of his pen into his paper and allows the black to bleed into the pages beneath, dark and murky without reason.

**00**

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**00**

The house is dusty. It normally is.

It is too large to keep clean by himself and Tony alone; there are too many rooms and too many ghosts hidden in dark corners. There is space and emptiness, furniture that hasn't been sat in for years, quilts and flags, paintings and books.

He keeps everything. Takes everything in and doesn't let go, because if he does—if he does, it won't come back. There have been too many broken promises, and their presence fills his home with words unspoken. Behind each locked door is a thought best left behind.

In one room, the hardwood floor is gouged, one clean mark. Like a sword. There are dark stains around it, torn leather. Dried husks of white chrysanthemums.

In another room, there is a candle, and the ashes of paper. A pen sits off to the side, rusted and forgotten next to yellowed sheets, curled at the edges with age.

Even if it hurts, even if he has to lock them behind doors of cold, unfeeling wood, he won't let go. They're all he has to turn to in the dark of night.

He thinks maybe once upon a time he could sleep without needing to know that someone would be there tomorrow. And memories; they don't hurt as much as people, do they?

And yet, knowing what he does, what he's experienced, still he—he wants so much for someone to be there. To wake up beside him, to grasp his hand without being asked, upon whom he could lean his head, to help plant his garden and fill a patch with the other's most favorite flowers, to eat dinner with, and—

—say his name. To understand the difference between Alfred and the United States of America, and love him, _be with him_, for _Alfred_.

Because no one had ever wanted to be with him in that way; without a political agenda behind each carefully pasted smile, planned touch, hidden opinion. His Father had warned him of the other countries' wiles; the way they would seduce and plunder each other, twist emotions into weapons, tear their hearts out and spit on everyone else's. He listened to his Father, even as his people did not; his Father was a good man, someone whom truly loved him.

He thinks that perhaps a small part of him wanted to give up and die with his passing. Humans came and went so quickly; he had seemed to only barely manage to whisper and impart that name given to him by the land's foreign natives before one of the greatest men he'd ever known slipped through his fingers to a place he wouldn't be able to follow to for ages to come, when at last he was conquered and shorn into nothing by hostile Nations or crumbled into the sea like so much dust on the wind.

He listened and kept his heart in a box, under lock and key; he thinks that maybe, if he were to open one of the doors in his house and beat back the ghosts and creeping creatures that pull themselves along the carpet, he may find the dusty, shriveled corpse, tucked carefully from view and pressed into the pages of an anthology of birds, between chapters depicting the secret of flight and pressed flowers from a childhood spent waiting for a man that remained half-way across the world.

Where other countries had allowed their hearts to rot and decay in the caverns of their chests, America keeps his perfectly preserved, not a mar or scratch to be seen. Alfred is a child, safe from the world while America takes the brunt of each pain. He knows how to keep himself separated; he is not sure that the others', so busy fighting and squabbling and claiming claiming claiming (take take take can't they for one fucking moment give?), can define and understand.

His chest aches at the thought. There is a difference between feeling dead inside, and being dead inside. He hasn't found it, but he thinks on some level he's always known.

The answer merely remains voiceless, like all such things he's locked away into his house, dusty and unused, but still wanted.

**00**

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_Everything came as a blur back then. Self-awareness was merely a passing thought; a glance at the fingers as they were run through a fox's pelt, a dark reflection in still waters, what may have been an inkling of thought as he passed those villages by that held a different sort of creature from all the rest._

_There hadn't been a point, as each day and night passed by like a second._

_He was always, always moving with the wind. He held no truly defined shape, since the people, the people (_strange creatures strange legs they seem happy they seem sad how can I tell?_) did not tie themselves to the land and say _mine mine mine_, didn't lock within their heads the thought (_what is thought a thought thinking these things they flow away on the wind like seeds from a Lion's Tooth_) that he was there, he was __**theirs**__, that he was but an empty mold unto which they could pass on their knowledge and culture and tradition (_how quaint they're moving dancing singing just like me just like me just like me except—**not**_)._

_Perhaps that was their downfall._

_Because they didn't hold on, didn't take within their free, untainted arms the spirit of their land, and instead allowed him to go as he pleased, allowed him to be wind water grass over and over and over again_

_again_

_again._

_When at last strangers came, disturbed the land and shaped his form with their will (_what is it what is it that keeps these monsters alive alive alive they creep and crawl but never fall down_), the others, these kinder creatures that loved him but could let him go, they—_

_they—_

_Well, they didn't last long._

_And he—well, neither did he._

**00**

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He stumbles into the living room, where Tony sits, playing video games and expecting him home in another three days, just barely touching the couch with his legs before he collapses.

His friend is up in an instant, pattering over to him and talking talking talking, but he—he can't take any of it in, there is but a white noise in silence and he's found the station—

He's so, so tired. The chill in his bones hasn't left, but the familiar face of his one true friend (it's been almost fifty four years right and still you've stayed with me I can't thank you enough I love you I love you) it—it makes his still, frozen heart lurch into motion.

Tony asks him in a Voice that is not a voice, but that language with which his species communicates, Are you okay?

Is he—

And he smiles, and it aches a little more. Tony has a beautiful Voice—

No. He isn't.

He hasn't been 'okay' in a very, very long time—days, months, weeks, years and years and years and seconds that creep and crawl like black ants skittering across paper and blooming into gardens—

—and more beyond that.

There has always been a little bit more about him than meets the eye, but they never, _never_ meet his eyes—

He sucks in a breath; it clogs in his throat, pressing into the softness of his trachea and settling like an egg. He still can't quite manage to breathe right, perhaps has gotten worse with an eight-hour flight back over the Atlantic.

He wishes that things could be better in the morning.

Tomorrow is a new day, but they lie, _lie_, because every day is the same when there is no one there to _make_ it different—when each time he opens his eyes he finds empty space and all he smells are Virginian orchards, and all he has to look forward to is sitting alone and speaking with people that hate hate hate him to the point where they would—they would—

— _raises his sword and pushes down down down and lets Alfred taste betrayal like the bitter tang of copper, pennies and wishing wells and tea kettles boiling over_—

— _how he cried and tried to pry the sword from his jacket his stomach the hardwood floor beneath while the presence of a bone-white mum plucked from America's garden sits like a silent vigil over his heart_—

To the point where they wouldn't—

— _he'll show up soon, though; any minute now, even_—

— _rains a little bit harder. How typical for bad weather on a date with England. He should have known. The damp gets into his hair, crawls down his scalp to slip past the neckline of his hoodie_—

"Tony—" he moans, and grasps the other's hand, so warm, _warm_. "Why—_why_ does it hurt so much, when all I feel is cold—?"

The other says nothing; takes his legs, half-sprawled on the floor, and moves them onto the couch, before hoisting himself up and moving America's head to his lap. He stroke's the other's golden hair, in just the way he likes, and grips his shoulder, to hold him, close and safe so that he won't—become lost behind the house's locked doors, that keep memories like faded photo albums, and hide the blood and tears.

Tony doesn't know what to say. In all the many years that he's lived, with and without Alfred, he cannot say he's mastered the affairs of the human heart, because Alfred—he is not like the rest. He is an old man and a child all at once, feeling blindly around with his hands, soft and vulnerable in a world made of sharp knives.

And he wishes so much that he could help the other because they are—friends? Yes, that is what Alfred calls them, and because of that, that word that makes him happy and want to make Alfred happy, too, he—

He feels a little lost.

So, even as the silence stretches into minutes, and the other's labored breathing turns into heavy, pained sobs, he doesn't let go.

Tony croons to Alfred in the Voice that he knows the other likes so, so much, a cradle song. He sings of sunlight, shining on the flowers of his home world as a child plays in clean river water, until night comes and steals away the sky to reveal the vast, brilliant universe.

The place that Tony, and he hopes Alfred, too, call home.

**00**

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_He appeared as nothing but a child to these strangers. And he was._

_As they stole the land, he died and lived, lost the will to let everything pass through him and instead stayed to watch and observe._

_Strangers._

_That's all he could remember thinking back then. And even back then, he hadn't realized that the root of language had formed what these monstercreatures called 'thoughts.' They pulled him in and tempted him, and he—_

—_he gave in, because he knew no better. They wrote upon his ethereal form (_a blank slate ripe for the taking make a wish upon a star then you'll know just who you are_), and gave him definition, tamed him, until he—until he…_

_They gave him a name._

_And it tasted foreign, caught in his teeth as he tried to push it out, but the more he said it, the more he came to forget, and the more he came to understand._

_And, oh, that was the rub, wasn't it? Understanding. _

_The world used to just be. But now—now it had meaning behind everything, and he knew, or he would come to know. _

_He became everything he didn't need, lost everything that he had ever wanted because—because._

_Because those others had wanted it, and what they wanted he could not resist because he was what he was and they were _selfish selfish selfish_ and they—they made him into their image, but damned him for wanting to _be_ like them, for being—_

—_just being._

_He became a weed. An unwanted pest among their cultivated crops. But, how did they expect for their dreams of the new world to ever come to fruition when all they did was leave the garden alone, festering and growing out of shape until it became naught but tall tree and thick root, too hardy to cut down?_

_They left him alone, and hated him for it._

_He used to be able to run on the wind and be a single drop of rain in a puddle, used to be the leaf that held aloft a butterfly's cocoon. But now, he was unyielding wood and steel, rigid in his place, reaching for the sun but never, _never_ being able to touch it again._

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The room number 648 gleams at Russia in the dim of the hallway, gold and sleek in the lowlights of the hotel. Behind the door, beneath the numbers, is America's room, where the other is, _should be_, after another day of skipped meetings.

Russia isn't upset. Nor is he happy, or particularly needy to visit America, damned nuisance that the nation is. He should be at the meetings, just as Russia must be at the meetings. An unpleasant affair, but necessary as deemed by—

Well, no one quite knows what started the tradition of meetings. 'World' meetings as they're called, are merely for show. Nothing ever gets done; nothing _can_ be done. In the modern age, nations hold as much sway over their government as a butterfly holds to the wind; they cannot fight against it, only ride the flow and pray that it takes them to a place of fortune.

Just as he could not stop the Bolsheviks as they murdered the last of the Romanovs, so America cannot halt the bickering between his two dominant political parties.

And yet, the Nations still blame and point fingers at each other, hate each other for the things they cannot control. In this world of disbelief, they can no longer speak the voice of the people; only sit prettily beside their elected officials and pray that they don't screw up.

It is a bitter pill to swallow, and Russia idly wonders, as he knocks stiffly on America's door, whether America is deeply affected by the world-wide anti-American sentiment, and whether he realizes that it is the same exact thing that Russia has had to go through before. Surely he doesn't, though; he can't realize, because America keeps _smiling_ (and something tickles at the back of Russia's mind, a familiar memory, a familiar taste in his mouth, like he's read this story before, but he doesn't quite know _when_).

He waits, but no move is made to open the door, no sign that there is life beyond the quiet border that keeps America from the rest of the world.

America is just being difficult, he thinks. He knocks again, waits, but no one comes, and maybe, _maybe_ he feels a little bit indignant, a little angry. Would the blond open the door if it were his _precious_ England knocking?

"America," he says, sharp and clear, easily audible in the hall. Still, all things remain quiet.

He will not call the other. Will not because he doesn't want to, need to. If America doesn't want to try and go out to dinner again, well—Russia never wanted to in the first place.

Russia is only playing with him, after all. It doesn't matter if America prefers to stay holed up in his room; Russia merely needs to find some other form of entertainment.

Because America is worthless, in the end; undesirable. Not even England will play with his toy if he leaves for a bit to do something else. Nobody wants America.

And Russia is fine with that.

**00**

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America is awake. His eyes ache, tongue thick and heavy and dry.

Tony sleeps on a cot next to the couch, where America rests, too tired to fall asleep. Despite the thick blankets wrapped around his frame, he can't help feeling tiny and cold, as if he'll curl up and disappear into the cushions should he move.

A part of him wishes he could burrow a hole into the earth and hide there until the sun comes out and warms his bones, draws him up from the soil as a diminutive sprout, reaching for the sky.

He wants, more than anything, warmth.

To feel—whole.

America stays awake and thinks. What it is to be whole, and why he feels empty. What he has done to fill the gaping hole in his chest.

Why it is the feeling began in the first place.

What he can yet do.

America thinks and thinks, until at last his eyelids flutter closed under the strain of fever and exhaustion. But, he smiles contentedly with the knowledge that he has a plan.

If only he could find someone whom is willing to try.

**00**

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_The strangers took the world from him, in the end._

_He didn't know how to go back to what he was; only, when the feebleness of his cluttered, knowing mind allowed, revisit the simplicity of his timeless memories._

_Maybe someday, when he finds the next person worthy of knowing, who _understands_, he'll impart his secret name, and taste freedom on his lips._

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(WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG AND UNNECESSARILY DETAILED NOTES, AHOY!)**

-**I have no set interpretation of how North and South America came to be.** Written here is the brain-vomit of what was a ten-second thinking session, in which I may or may not have been distracting myself with a rubber chicken. :| So, yeah. If you're confused, know that I'm referring to the fact that Native Americans made no claim on the land, merely living where they could, which is an entirely different approach from the Europeans, whom loved claiming land as theirs like no tomorrow. So, I kind of left the interpretation loose, leaving America to act as a 'great spirit' of sorts before the Europeans came and molded him into their image. And, uh, did anyone catch that bible reference? I _know_, it made me cringe, too. I don't mean to drag any sort of religion into this, but I do love drawing parallels, and that one came and smacked me in the face. Sorry!

-I've always had the head-canon that America would see George Washington as a father figure, hence why he refers to him as father. Washington was intensely against America intermingling beyond 'friendship' with any foreign powers. Wikipedia sums up his sentiments pretty well (yeah yeah, Wikipedia is bad and the devil and all sorts of shit like that, but I'm too lazy, and I've verified that it is correct; give it a rest people):

_"Washington's public political address warned against foreign influence in domestic affairs and American meddling in European affairs. He warned against bitter partisanship in domestic politics and called for men to move beyond partisanship and serve the common good. He warned against 'permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world',[55] saying the United States must concentrate primarily on American interests. He counseled friendship and commerce with all nations, but warned against involvement in European wars and entering into long-term "entangling" alliances."_

Uh, well. Sorry George. Looks like we totally spit in your face regarding this and other things in your speech. *looks pointedly and accusingly at the two dominant political parties screwing America over*

-I'm kinda disappointed that you guys haven't voiced any notice of my use of names in this story. I'm trying to be careful with it, to make distinctions between the Nations as the personifications of their countries, and the Nations as individual people. Look back through the chapters and one-shot, and you'll notice at only specific times the Nations call each other by their human names. I'm using this as a sort of meter on how to gauge a person's closeness with another. Notice how America always refers to Canada as 'Matthew' and refers to England half the time as 'Arthur.' In the first chapter, there's a specific instance where America makes the distinction between Ivan and Russia. Tony always calls America 'Alfred.' It's not anything to think about too much until a bit down the road, when the issue is brought up. But, I think it adds something a bit extra to the story. :)

-Tony's 'Voice.' I dunno. I've always found it kinda funny how you hear Tony cussing out England, but never see him talk to America. He just kinda goes along with whatever Alfred does, like play video games or watch horror movies (ahaha so cute!). So I've made it my little head-canon that Tony has a special voice he uses for people he likes, like Alfred and Toris. Also, it is my mega-super-duper-head-canon that Alfred and Tony share epic bromance like woah. And, if you count it, Tony really is the only person/alien/thing that hasn't, ah, fought with America.

-Anti-American sentiment makes me really sad. Because that means people hate me based upon the fact that I'm born in the U.S. D: Actually, anti-American sentiment, sometimes referred to as anti-Americanism, but sometimes not because the issue is confusing and controversial to the extreme, doesn't have an exact definition. But, generally it can be thought of as an aversion to everything that is the United States. We are called 'poison,' and people believe that we should either be destroyed, or they should isolate themselves to avoid the 'tainting.' It's extremely hurtful. Now, why does Ivan think it sounds familiar? It's a little something called 'Anti-Sovietism.' Sound similar? It is. It's what countries, including the U.S. did to the U.S.S.R. They aren't so very different in the idea that they stand against everything a country is, and all those people contained within it. It's disheartening to think about; instead, let's focus on trying to make sure we don't go into war again, please!

-Lion's Tooth is an alternative name for dandelions! Dandelion is a corruption of the French name, 'dent de lion,' which of course means Lion's Tooth. It was named as such because of the shape of the leaves.

-Please please please let me have gotten that little tidbit of information on the execution of the Romanovs correct! Oh god, I can't do research for the life of me.

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So, uh. I am not feeling good about this chapter. AT. ALL. I'm sorry for the horrible quality, guys! D:

Eeeee, started college. Yikes. A lot of you will say not to rush chapters out, and take my time, but, uh, this is about as much time as I usually spend on chapters, and bummer for you guys, **my updates will become erratic until I can smooth out my schedule. **When you say take your time, I say 'take what you can get,' because this has the potential to be the last update for several days, several weeks, or even several months. D: This is around the time where I slow down in writing. I can actually become so depressed in school that I entirely lose inspiration to write, and won't open a Word document for up to six or eight months at a time. If you feel like it's been a bit too long since the last update, feel absolutely free to message me and I'll probably get right on it!

In the meantime, please excuse my absence, since I'm going to be working on two one-shot prizes (one of which is SwizterlandxAustria. Whut. I don't know how to write those two! But, I don't wanna disappoint the requester, either. :( I'll do my best and research what I can!), along with updating 'A Perished Sun' and my KHR fic. Too much…I won't get done until November at this rate…

Once again, I'm extremely sorry for the terrible chapter and the lengthy notes! Please forgive me for disappointing you guys!


	4. glue it back together

**Title**: The Dumbing Down of Love

**Author**: The DayDreaming

**Summary**: That feeling of emptiness that made him question why why why, the sensation of being alone in a crowded room, a wish that for once, there was some mutual strand of affection to be found for him and for someone else—America searches for the meaning of love, and Russia happily obliges, if only to see the one he hates the most fall into despair.

**A/N**: HAY U GUYZ. :D I'm sorry that this is so terrible. I feel super super super rusty on writing this way. Also had several existential writing crises. Forgive the terribleness. Shhh, it'll be over soon, my darlings. Plus, this is like, only half of a chapter, but I'll call it chapter 4 anyways.

**0-0-0**

**STEP 4**: _glue it back together_

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**"If I had known at this very moment in time that I would feel the breaking and the tearing of one-thousand things inside me, small words and even smaller promises, I would have shattered this strange idea forming within myself. Even if it meant remaining cold and broken, I would still prefer this cold to gaining the knowledge of what it's like to be glued back together, and then taken apart piece by scabbed-over piece.**

**"I, too, have become an Icarus, and plummet swiftly to the world below me."**

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The world, as it tends to do, comes into focus at a slow, unhurried pace, blurred in the swampy warmth of fever-sweat and an overhang of matted bangs. The blaze is an insistent fire, pure in its unadulterated bliss, and he at once thinks that maybe he's gone to a better place than the cold den of his hotel-room fort.

He grunts, tries to move, and finds the weight of half a dozen quilts lying on top of him, like a great sleeping bear. They're stifling and welcomed all at once, drowning his breath but warming his skin (though an ever insistent cold burns at the quick of his marrow), and he can't find the strength in his jellied arms to push them aside, though the burning need to move and walk and _oh gods help me I need to run_ remains an itch in his useless fingers.

It's only after he stares dazedly at the slow rotation of a familiar (too _too_ familiar, my goodness what an inch of dust) ceiling fan, that he remembers the long flight home, a car ride spent in the sun, and the lulling tones of maybe his best friend in the world.

Of course.

And so the world comes into focus a bit more quickly and takes his breath away.

In the corner of his smoggy vision, clouded like an overcast day, he sees Tony patter into the room, tray in hand. The sight of the creature, smooth and gray, gleaming like a wet marble, releases the urge to speak within himself, pry open the sealing on his lips and whimper, like he'd do to the nursemaid that would come and take care of him as a child after a particularly terrible nightmare. It's difficult and tiring, the act and the face underused, and for once he thinks he'd rather not.

But it doesn't matter, because Tony sees him anyways, a look in his eyes that has Alfred believing he may have done something bad (and doesn't he always? What a bad bad bad child, so unlike the good twin), before the fervor subsides into something a little like happiness. Tony quickly clinks the tray atop the coffee table and squeezes through the tiny gap between table's edge and over-stuffed couch, pushed together for ease of use and otherwise a complete hindrance to all parties.

Alfred feels the other's tiny hand on his forehead, a far-off memory of cool stones thrown on hot sand, before the alien clicks his tongue and gropes around for a cloth, dipping it in the bowl of ice-water, the only other occupant of the resident tray, and brings it to Alfred's chapped lips. The moisture breaks the thin seal, and Alfred is blinded for a moment by how wonderful just a few drops of water are in this blinding desert.

He lets out a croak (it's not enough, he needs more more _more_), but Tony merely shakes his head and refreshes the cloth before placing the damp towel atop his forehead.

Everything is alright, Tony says. There is nothing to worry about; I've taken care of everything.

And Alfred is feverish enough to believe him.

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.

.

The week of meetings ends, as always, with nothing getting done. If there were ever anything to rely on in this universe of ever-shifting values and shades, it's that the tri-annual Congregation of Nations (lovingly referred to by all as 'CON'), is as useless a procedure as, in America's own crude terminology, but with all the charm of the truth, 'wiping one's ass before one's morning constitutional.'

Russia can't quite bring himself to believe that it's over, almost crushed in the belief that he'll close his eyes and open them again only to find the sterility of a drab, white-washed wall and the shadow-lined skeletons of his peers, eternally pressing their faces towards the front of the room with unseeing eyes. It is an exercise in futility; a grind that, while not daily, surely encompasses the same scope.

But even as he thinks this, the same line of thought that he follows each time he steps out of another foreign meeting hall, there is the recognition that this time, something has fallen off or come undone. There is an itch at the back of his mind, an empty chair that burns in a corner, tucked away but still creating a noticeable bulge. Unused and cold, it flares in high contrast to a static background; the owner's voice trails out a slur of words, like whispers in the night, and Russia can't bring himself to remember their meaning, though it sounds like a song he used to know by heart.

It's a funny feeling in his chest, not unlike a pitcher tipping over and all its water spilling out; fall slosh gone, and a shivering mess left in the afterglow.

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_The first time he cracked open a book by Shakespeare, he remembers distinctly the impression that this guy couldn't write love for the life of him. _

_Alfred still holds that impression, but that fact has expanded to the entire idea that _no one_ can write love. For all that he's lived, he has never once had the notion that someone ever will._

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Russia returns to the hotel, misted in its usual shroud of fog from a recent drizzle, and dreads the packing of his belongings, as boring and timeless as it will turn out to be once again. He'll trade this home for another, and then another; different and yet the same. It's another exercise in futility, and he wonders why he bothers to unpack at all, everything in its proper place, top drawer for undergarments, third for pants, suit in the closet, and shoes paired and lined up in a row under the bed.

He feels empty as he tucks away the edge of an unused shirt, its collar squashed in an unappealing smear as it's shoved into his old, water-stained suitcase, seeming to take up more space than it should (oh how does he ever fit all of these things in, in the first place; it seems there's never a suitcase big enough to accommodate all his belongings). The methodic repetition is mind-numbing and dull, and while he would usually hum or sing to fill the silence of his room, he can't quite dredge up the will.

He hasn't been able to for a while now. He wonders when it became too much effort to fill his life with something other than vodka and paperwork.

He hasn't wanted to see a sunflower for a very, very long time.

The zipper sticks on the protruding hem of a pair of pants, and Russia hastily realizes he's attempted to close his battered luggage with the inside only half-full.

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.

_But it was maybe a bit unfair of him. People couldn't write love, and certainly not Shakespeare, but _romance_. That was an entirely different definition._

_And he couldn't stand it, really. Because every book he read, lathered and slick with intrinsic meaning and purple prose and the oily skin of optimistic pessimism, seemed painful and hard to swallow. They painted ugly things for him, knowledge without experience, and it was enough to say that he didn't want it._

_Of everything he's seen, death and war, tears of lamentation, romance is the most hideous creature to slink across the threshold of paper._

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.

He trudges down the stairs, suitcase thunking along the steps like an erratic drum behind him. The elevators are operable, but there is an urgent need in him to _move_, and he won't deny himself (he's never denied himself).

At the bottom, he opens the stairwell door and causes a moon-eyed couple to stumble back in surprise (_fear_). He pulls his too-heavy burden behind him, wheels clattering on the sandy tile of the hotel lobby, one nuisance traded for another.

As he checks out, eyeing the world beyond a pair of gold-plated door-frames, saturated in rain and fog, wondering if it would be too troublesome to hail a taxi, the shadow of a memory flashes in his mind's eye.

The fluid figure slamming a car door shut and driving away.

With a smile only pleasant to look at in photographs, he turns his attention to the clerk, asking, "Miss, have you happened to check out a loud, obnoxious blond man yet today?"

The girl blinks, and steps away from the giant leaning over her desk. She tries to hide her trembling, "N-no, sir."

"Oh," he lowers his eyebrows in disappointment, but keeps the smile (appearances, appearances, always _so_ important). "Then have you perhaps seen someone by the name of Alfred Jones come through here?"

At this, the clerk perks up and tries to hide a smile of recognition. She bites her lip and subtly checks the records, "Yes. He checked out about four days ago, give or take."

Russia swallows the information and doesn't let his reaction show on his face. He can't, because he doesn't quite know what he's feeling himself; the smile feels like a pasty mass on his face. He maintains an air of warm apathy, neither here nor there on the matter, just the way they want to hear it, "Oh? That's odd. He and I scheduled to have a meeting, and he never showed up the day before last to attend. Did he give any reason why he would leave so early?"

The clerk frowns, still a little put out by the other's intimidating presence, a cold shadow even in the slightly chilly walls of the lobby, "Mr. Jones didn't say much when he left (I was the one who saw him out, sir), but he looked terribly under the weather. It's a shame, too. He seemed so much more cheery when he arrived; smiling all over the place. He even gave me a flower from that lovely bouquet he was toting around…"

Russia allows his mind to mull over the fact that this woman, barely out of girlhood, has also been offered flowers by 'Mr. Jones,' practically charmed; his eye catches sight of a slightly withered daylily poking up from an otherwise drab vase off in a lonely corner of the counter. The clerk shivers as the man's eyes spear through her.

"Sick, you say?"

"Uh, ah, yes…!" The clerk shifts around her papers and quickly hands the stranger his receipt. She smiles as amicably and false as she can, "Have a nice day, sir."

Russia smiles a fraction wider at the entirely blatant brush-off, tempted to chuckle darkly, but then allows his eyes to wander back to that singular, browning husk of a flower. And he realizes he wishes to remain in her presence about as much he'd wish to associate himself with an ill-tempered rattler.

He gathers his things and leaves, the click-click-click of wheels on tile-crevices as much of a definitive ending as anything else.

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.

.

_Romance is a quick thing. Errant and relentless in its one-mindedness to consume everything. It destroys kings and empires, lives and the will to live them. _

_Every romance would and will end in a tragedy._

_The candle, short and scented in the chemical throes of ecstasy and foolishness, flickers out._

_He thinks he's heard an analogy for that before, somewhere. Perhaps related to something entirely different. _

_But that doesn't matter. Two tragedies with the same end; there's no point in distinguishing them._

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.

Outside, the world is cold and lonely, and claws around his face with brittle fingers. He steps out from under the hotel's awning and hails a cab about to pass by.

The car sloshes to a stop, water skimming off the tires and rippling along the street as it disperses. He steps off the curb, keen to keep from the rain as much as possible. Half-way to the idling vehicle, a thought catches him and almost makes him stumble, before he whips back around and kneels on the ground.

His trailing scarf soaking in a puddle, he pulls from the gutter transparent, rumpled beasts, queer and lacking a good majority of petals. Small and dainty, thin and lackluster.

He tucks the sunflowers, _seveneightnine_, under his arm, and doesn't mind the bloom of cold, dirty water on his coat.

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_And though he has despaired over the omnipresent trend of romances, their lacy edges smooth pills for everyone else to follow, but nothing but an acrid worm squirming its way down his own throat, he has never stopped what he might call a little seed of hope from nestling into the wheezing, frail chambers of his heart, folded deep and narrow among the pulsing waves of realism and heat and blood._

_It's a tiny thing, crumpled and folded over, like a piece of paper to be passed around by fumbling children in a quiet classroom._

_Love in novel-format._

_Because, though novel-format romance, hot red and slick, with smooth cover pages and ready-to-curve spines, are so easily drawn out in the human mind and left to spill out in murky, unappetizing spittled overtures, a novel-format love will be…_

_Well, he's not quite sure yet. But he thinks that maybe he can reminisce in a time where he might have known, a time that he's long locked away behind heavy, wooden doors._

_A time where he used to just—be._

.

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Alfred recovers.

It is slow and painstaking, though more than anything the recovery is in his mind. Six days out of commission, seven more for staring listlessly at the ceiling.

In all that time, he has yet to receive one phone call—from anyone.

He doesn't linger on it, this silent longing, and instead ruminates on how—nice it feels, to finally have some time to himself. No shouting, no yelling, no smiling when he doesn't want to (he hasn't wanted to smile in _such_ a long time), no angry bosses, no angry countries, just—

Nothing.

And it is perhaps the most beautiful feeling in the world.

And the hardest to cope with.

It falls on him, a deadened, cold weight, pressing into him, through him, like a sheet of ice. He feels numb and useless; all twisted words and slurred thoughts.

He speaks with Tony about simple things, nice things; what to plant for the spring, the new neighbor two houses down, in a house painted a ridiculous shade of royal purple, how many shooting stars Tony has seen during Alfred's absence.

Stars.

He asks Tony if he wants to go outside tonight, even if it'll be cold, and star-gaze. The sky looks so much bigger through the eyes of a shivering, frost-wracked body.

Now though, Alfred has dredged up the will, the strength at last, to sit out on the porch, a pad of paper in his hands and pen fallen into the trench of his thighs pressed together, nestled snuggly in the pillow-lined confines of a whicker loveseat. He looks out on his yard, unkempt (so much to do, too little too late), and revels in the crisp breeze spilling over his chain-link fence.

This is home, he thinks. Comfortable and familiar. Sun dapples across his neck, an odd heat, filtering down from a shedding oak tree. He could stay like this forever, sitting and taking in the scent of grass and a deep blue sky wrapped in the radiance of a golden afternoon.

But even as he's filled with the sight, the smell, he is acutely aware of his loneliness. It wraps its arms around him, an embrace he can't shake, and one he's not so sure he wants to let go.

He feels cold. So indescribably cold, but not an icy penetration of his outer-self more so than an imminent seeping of something inward, something that he's sure used to be as sleek and bold as he tries to appear nowadays to the others, despite the fact that his glory days seem long-gone and dead.

He ponders the idea of heartbreak, and whether or not it would feel like this, but…who does he have? To feel sad over losing? Who?

Because he hasn't lost anyone. He would have known if he had. Heartbreak only comes to those who are left behind.

Then what? If something is leaking inside, but no-one is missing (no-one is missing because he never _had_ anyone to begin with), can it simply be that he's…

"Tony!" he calls out, hoping the little alien is near-by. He doesn't really have to hope; Tony has been acting like the proverbial mother hen ever since he got back from Lon—…

The sliding glass door barring the patio from his backroom glides open with a low shriek (another thing to fix too much to do _too much_), and Tony patters out, a glass of water and bottle of pills in hand (though if the pills were any sort of earthly drug cocktail he wouldn't be able to tell you what it might be).

Even as Alfred tries to speak, his friend is attempting to stuff two tiny pills into his mouth, "Tony—hey wait, not yet!—have you ever—c'mon Tony, I don't feel bad anymore—hold it, please—ggguuurggh!"

Tony tips the glass of water in his other hand to Alfred's mouth, and his companion, choking on foul medicine, chugs like a man dying of thirst. After breathing roughly through his nose for a minute, willing his stomach to remain in his abdomen and not crawl up his throat, Alfred returns to his earlier question.

"Tony, have you ever felt really cold inside, like you'd never feel warm again—_ever_?"

Tony stares at him for a few seconds before he quickly tries to twist the cap from his bottle of pills again, attempting to dump about ten into his palm. Alfred grabs his wrist and stops him, laughing.

It's been a long time since Alfred has laughed like that.

Tony returns the pills to their bottle, a place to stay once he perceives they have no use, and focuses all of his attention upon the other, whom he realizes has just asked a question in one of his sillier human metaphors for feeling.

Alfred continues, "Why does something leak, if nothing has been lost or gained?"

Because things fall apart with age and use, is Tony's reply.

(And even without age, he'd like to say, or, more pointedly, _use_; but he is a creature of few words, and this, Alfred understands—their language goes beyond more than sounds, to the looks seen in eyes and the feeling of a hand on another's knee.)

"So, how do ya fix it?"

You fill it back in.

"With what?"

Odds and ends, caulk and concrete, iron, or steel—anything.

"How?"

The softness in the question hides its weight and value. Tony places his hand, warm and smooth, over the other's sternum, the bone thrumming with the strength of an unbreakable heart (or so he likes to think).

You bring it close—close enough to staunch the blood, keep it all from falling out. And maybe—maybe, over time, it will heal all on its own.

"Like a bandage?"

Yes. But more so a tourniquet.

"And where…where can I find something like that?"

Surely not in any store. But, I think anyone has it, if you're willing to ask.

Alfred smiles, and there's something a little watery in the way it wavers that makes Tony think he's done something terrible. But then Alfred is taking him in his arms, and the force of it all (not physically; because Alfred has learned over many years that things shatter much more easily in his hands than others'), smothers him, a hot, heady wind saturated in the scent of apple and wood and fresh-cut grass.

It will hurt, though, Tony warns, almost wishing not to speak when it may break whatever peace his friend has found. Beyond belief. Beyond imagination. If it goes wrong.

You'll break.

And if there is a smear of wetness where Alfred's chin rests upon his shoulder, and a tremble that shudders through him but is not his own, Tony doesn't ruminate on it.

.

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.

_A novel-format love, he thinks, will be rough and hard. With thick edges and heavy beads of glue to hold all of the many, many pages together; but not enough, never enough._

_The paper will be smeared, the ink watery and thin, and not all set in stone; enough leeway for memory to stumble through and soften the thick scars lacerating the leather-bound covers, but not strong enough to reach into whatever lies inside._

_And every edge is dog-eared and well-thumbed, looked-through a million times without meaning quite rising to the surface, but there all the same, murky and quiet. Some chapters are burned, the soot and ash staining their allotted places black, and the heat threatens to curl and consume the rest, but it never does move beyond that place in time._

_And the words. Oh, the words. There won't be nearly as many as everyone thinks, nor will they paint red roses and purple skies. They'll pave ugly paths through thorn trees and black bogenvelia's, fall off cliffs and huddle like roaches at the spine. _

_They will tell a story, though, and it will be one worth reading._

_._

_._

_.  
_

**NOTES!:**

-"Wipe one's ass before one's morning constitutional." Essentially a redone version of the much more crude "Wiping your ass before you shit." Meaning, to do something ineffectual, that will ultimately have no consequence.

-Why DOES it seem like clothes take up so much more space than they should? A mystery. Thank goodness for mothers who know how to warp the space-time continuum and fit your closet into a single rucksack.

-Look up the definitions for 'romance' and 'love.' Even the Dictionaries practically state Romance novels as ridiculous and flowery. In this fic, there will be a distinct line drawn between the terms 'romance' and 'love.' Go with the flow, my friends.

-"A candle…flickers out." You'll notice that the first italics section begins with Shakespeare. Well, here's a vague reference for all you Macbeth fans out there (I disliked that play, but it's awesome to laugh at the sheer weeberish-ness of Macbeth, and his ball-crunching wife). The reference, and this is a jump, is to one of Macbeth's famous lines: "Out, out, brief candle!" The soliloquy talking about how short and meaningless life is. Terms like 'summer romance' and 'burning romance' came to mind to facilitate the candle metaphor. Romance that's passionate, often burns out quickly. By the end of that romance, often-times, people find they don't 'love' each other anymore, and part ways. Like life, it's quick and meaningless.

-I keep going back and forth on how to make Tony talk. It's difficult to distinguish sometimes between what he's saying, and what are actually actions in a paragraph. But I'm hoping you guys are perceptive enough to catch the drift. ;)

-Thorn trees and black bogenvelia's: Thorn trees = trees with big-ass thorns. Some of them have monstrous thorns. Bogenvelia's = really pretty vines/trees/whatever (depends on how big they are; some I've seen are towering, and really do seem to resemble trees, but I'm pretty sure are just vines), with thorns! Pretty sure there's no such thing as a 'black' bogenvelia, though it's more for the impact of the statement than anything. Either way, my parents sometimes have to work in crossboxes engulfed in bogenvelia branches, and the entire vine is just saturated in big thorns! They come home all scratched up. ;-; So, bogenvelia's can really be the bane of some people's existences.

* * *

A wild AUTHOR appeared!

Go! READER!

What will READER do? -FIGHT -[Throw Stones]

The wild AUTHOR used Prostration! READER's defense sharply fell!

READER used Throw Stones!

What will READER do? -FIGHT -[Secret Weapon]

The wild AUTHOR used Hiatus! It's super effective!

READER used Secret Weapon! READER sent out a Flame!

One-hit K.O.! The wild AUTHOR fainted!

READER gained 2 Exp. Points!

The wild AUTHOR tries to crawl away…READER catches the wild AUTHOR and proceeds to use Rape!

The wild AUTHOR cries.

* * *

This presentation brought to you by Pokemon SoulSilver! :D (Just so you guys know, nothing was meant by the wild AUTHOR using Hiatus. It's just a fun joke for people who have been reading my journals lately.)

Uh. I have…an excuse? ;-; I told you guys I wouldn't have the soul to update again when school started for me. But would anyone listen? Of course not. But, alas, here I am. Crawling out of my hole to squirm and dry up in the radiant heat of one thousand evil glares.

This isn't particularly good. I don't feel good about writing it. I feel sticky. I bet you guys feel sticky, too. STICKY WITH DISAPPOINTMENT. DDDDDDD: I'm sorry about the terrible quality. I feel all rusty. I know it's not my usual standard, and even then, my usual standard is pretty crappy. I had to look through my previous chapters, and that was painful. In my eyes, Love a Lover looks like I wrote it while drunk, and the previous chapters are just gross with—with—with something that I cannot name, but is—gross. ;-; Forgive me for spamming you guys with crap.

This chapter was supposed to be much longer, and actually include a bit more in the last scene, along with a meeting with Russia. That did not happen. Obvious. THIS DID NOT COME OUT AS I HAD PLANNED. (What planning?) Fuck. Anyways. Fun times for you guys. Not for me. Doing this chapter was almost physically painful. Slow, sloooow progress, each word extracted like a tooth without Novocain.

There normally wouldn't be so much trouble but…:/ Writer's block, and a lack of true inspiration to continue. It was with the insistent whining nagging death-threats coaxing of Ceralennox that this chapter began, and the inspiring words of Ahmerst that got me to finish it. So, go thank them, if you feel that this chapter was worth it. Just please keep in mind that this is really only part one of the true chapter I want. Only half the events occur. :/ Annoying, yes. But I don't have the heart to continue right now, and I don't have the heart to keep it unfinished. So, a compromise. Post this, get my Christmas prompt done, and then go from there. If I spent any more time on this, I wouldn't have enough time to get my secret santa finished, or any prompts I may get as a pinch hitter. Sadness. Exams are pressing in, and family is insistent that I stop acting like a cockroach and get the hell out of my room. Moo. ;-;

BALLS TO THE WALL, GUYS. SPRINT TO CHRISTMAS BREAK! I'LL MEET YOU THERE, WITH A MAYBE-SORTA-KIND CHAPTER FIVE. OR THE SEQUEL TO 'AS SWEET AS ICE-CREAM.'

EITHER/OR. :|


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